Portland Crab Ravioli and Wild Garlic Pesto

Making pasta looks oh so easy when watching it on the TV, I have tried making it before and it was only just edible! It’s about time I thought to rekindle my pasta making with creating a ravioli dish!!! I have a pasta making roller machine thing, a Christmas present from my son and I am ashamed to say only used once – but this will change from today!!

But what filling to use, cheese, mushrooms, no had to be seafood and Portland Crab seemed to be the ideal ingredient. I purchased my ready dressed Portland Crab and lightly mixed in salt, pepper and a little lemon zest.

Pasta: All recipes seem to make several ton of the stuff, but I wanted just enough for two starters and here is my ratio of eggs to flour, which sort of worked! They ended up looking better once cooked, but they were pretty tough and chewy where I had to scrape them off the work surface or did I cook them too long?? – Whatever more practice required!!

Serves 2 (starters)
1 egg
200g flour (you can use special pasta OO flour if you have it)

sieve the flour into a bowl and make a well
add the egg and combine together
the dough shouldn’t be too wet or too dry. If too wet add more flour, too dry add a little water
knead the dough until nice and silky
cover in cline film and refrigerate for 30 mins
remove and cut into half
roll into a long rectangle shape and roll through your fancy pasta roller
continue until you have two nice thin pasta sheets
now make sure there is plenty of flour on your work surface or it will stick like mine did!
place the crab mixture in regular dollops on one piece of pasta

brush on a little water all over the pasta
lay the other sheet on top and gentle press this down to remove all the air bubbles (like I have almost done!)
then cut into circles or squares, I used a large food ring

cook them in boiling slated water until they rise to the surface and drain – about 2 minutes
defrost the pesto and mix with olive oil until its a nice looking sauce consistency and gentle heat through and pour over the ravioli